Jeff Thomson was one of the most feared fast bowlers of all time, but he was never a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. In 2008, the Almanack celebrated five all-time greats who missed out on the coveted award. Ian Chappell pays tribute.
Note: The other four who were never Cricketers of the Year were Inzamam-ul-Haq, Wes Hall, Bishan Bedi and Abdul Qadir.
Read more from the Almanack archive
When asked to describe his bowling action, Jeff Thomson replied in typically laconic fashion: “Aww, mate, I just shuffle up and go wang.” It was the perfect description for what he did, except that it failed to reveal the carnage resulting from a simple “wang”.
For two years until he badly injured his shoulder at Adelaide in December 1976, Jeff Thomson was the most lethal bowler on earth, with a better average and strike-rate than Dennis Lillee. And there wasn’t a stat for what his presence did to opposing batsmen’s psyches.
In 1991, some 13 years after a Bridgetown Test in which Thommo had sent down an intimidating spell to Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge, I went into the Kensington Oval’s Pickwick Stand. The aficionados there knew their stuff: they had seen plenty of Barbadian pacemen, from Manny Martindale in the 1930s, through Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, to Malcolm Marshall and Sylvester Clarke. They’d also witnessed quickies from other islands like Andy Roberts and Michael Holding.
I asked, “Who’s the fastest you’ve ever seen?” To a man, they immediately replied, “Ooh man, dat Jeffrey Robert Thomson. He don’t bowl fast, man, he bowl like de wind.”
That Jeffrey Robert Thomson left an impression wherever he went. Sometimes it was a mental picture, other times it was a bruise, but he left his most indelible mark on cricket when he just shuffled up and went wang.
